Stalking of woman architect in Gujarat: Congress and BJP field ladies to launch the attacks

NEW DELHI: The Congress and the BJP sniped at each other over the alleged stalking of a young woman architect in Gujarat by the state machinery. Both sides deployed their women representatives to launch the attacks.

Senior Congress leaders Girija Vyas, Jayanthi Natarajan, Rita Bahuguna Joshi and Shobha Oza demanded an inquiry by a Supreme Court judge and said Gujarat chief minister Narendra Modi did not deserve to be BJP's PM candidate on the basis of a claim by website Cobrapost that he had ordered illegal surveillance of the young woman. The women's wing of the Congress also undertook a protest march to BJP headquarters at Ashoka Road in the capital.

They said the honour and dignity of women in India was at stake in the backdrop of the "serious issue in which a young woman was stalked, followed, spied upon on during her every waking act by no less than an entire anti-terror squad of Gujarat Police". "Modi has no moral and political right to govern Gujarat," Joshi said at a press conference along with Vyas, Natrajan and Oza at AICC headquarters.

Investigative websites, Cobrapost and Gulail, said on November 15 that Amit Shah, former home minister of Gujarat and Modi's close aide, had ordered illegal surveillance of a woman at the behest of one 'saheb'.

They had released taped conversations between Shah and an IPS officer to back up their claim, adding that their authenticity could not be confirmed. Joshi said 'saheb' referred to Modi, according to BJP chief Rajnath Singh.

The BJP reacted sharply to the Congress attack on Modi and said the ruling party was using its surrogates to "sink politics to hitherto unseen depths". Spokesperson Meenakshi Lekhi said the Congress had no locus standi to demand a probe when neither the woman at the centre of the controversy nor her family members have said anything to this effect.

She asserted that the surveillance of the woman was legal and done at the behest of Shah. "We cannot disclose the nature of the case for obvious reasons. There was nothing illegal about it," she said.

Lekhi accused the Congress of bringing a private affair into the public domain. "It is nothing but an attempt in character assassination. If anybody has violated her right to privacy and laws of the land, it is the Congress party and its surrogates," she said, alleging that the websites which released the tapes were acting at the party's behest. "The website itself hasn't validated the authenticity of the tapes," she added. The Congress members expressed alarm over the incident.